Supreme court is supremely unhappy with government. Why?

Supreme court refuses to accept government’s rejection of 43 names of 77 High court judges

Since the appointment of judges has been pending with the government for more than 9 months now, the Chief Justice of India, T.S.Thakur has shown his disapproval and anger in many ways but to no avail.

The deadlock between the judiciary and government is not new. It must be recalled that it is nine months since a Constitution Bench scrapped the NJAC law and asked the government to frame a new Memorandum of Procedure (MoP) for Judicial Appointments. The Law Minister and the government has repeatedly assured the judiciary that the process of finalisation of MoP will not stall judicial appointments process. But no appointments have been approved since.

Tears do not help

It must be recalled that the Chief Justice had broken down into tears in front of the Prime Minister over the same issue. While doing nothing to increase the number of courts and judges in the country denying the poor man and under trial prisoners justice, the government is postponing the appointment of High court judges for months together. The government wants to control the appointment of judges, especially in crucial states.

Even direct accusations do not help

Thakur also accused the government of trying to decimate the judiciary and lock justice out. He also accused the government of trying to choke justice by not appointing judges and locking courtrooms en masse.

“In Karnataka HC, an entire floor of courts are locked because there are no judges. Once we had a situation where we had judges but no court rooms. But now there are courtrooms but no judges.You may now as well close court rooms down and lock justice out,”

Supreme court refuses to accept government’s rejection of 43 names of the 77 High court judges

Yesterday, that is on 18. 11.2016,the Supreme Court Collegium refused to accept the government’s rejection of 43 names of the 77 it had hand-picked for judicial appointments in High Courts, saying that it had reiterated every one of the 43 names that was sent back by the Centre to the Collegium for re-consideration .The appointments of only 34 names were approved by the government.

The ball is now with the government, as the new Memorandum of Procedure (MoP) is yet to be finalised and the prevalent procedure is that once the Collegium reiterates the names sent back to them, the government has to accept and clear them for appointment as judges.

On demonetization

Calling the government’s move of banning Rs.500 and Rs. 1,000 notes a carpet bombing of its people, the Supreme court on Friday refused the government’s request to stay the filing of cases against demonetisation in other high courts and smaller courts.

The Supreme Court on Friday warned that there “may be riots” “Some measures are required. See the kind of problems people are facing. It is a crisis. People have to go to the high court. If we shut them from going to the high court, how can we know the magnitude of the problem? People going to different courts indicates the magnitude of the problem.”

“How can we shut our doors to people when there is a problem of such magnitude?” said the Chief Justice of the country. Laudable sentiments. Hope the voiceless find a spokesman in the judicial leader.

-UDAAN